James Hooper via AP
The snake sitting in James Hooper's toilet before James Hooper and roommate Kenny Spruill configured a fishing rod to pull her out.

Hooper’s roommate, Kenny Spruill, manage to configure a fishing pole with a noose and drop the snake, unharmed, into a bucket. They didn’t want to touch the snake because they didn’t know if the creature was venomous or not. He estimated the reptile was about 3.5 feet long, according to The Pilot Online.

The two men called animal control officials, who also initially thought the whole thing was a prank.

As it turns out, the snake was a female ball python, a nonvenomous snake species. Her coloring indicated she was of a variety bred to be a pet, Virginia Beach Animal Control supervisor Rebecca Franklin told News 3.

“It’s what’s called a ‘pastel pied,’ so it has white on its body as well. It’s a lighter color,” she said. “Nothing that’s a wild snake here looks anything like what this snake looks like.”

James Hooper via AP
Kenny Spruill and an unidentified animal control officer pose with the female ball python. The reptile, a lost pet, was later reunited with her owner.

Luckily, animal control was able to reunite the snake with her owners, who said she had been missing for two weeks. They said they saw Hooper’s viral Facebook post about the incident and recognized their lost pet.

It’s not clear exactly how the escaped snake wound up in the toilet, which was miles from her home. Hooper has theorized that she came through the sewer, while Franklin believes it’s more likely that the snake came into the house and crawled up into the toilet for a rest.